June 8- En route to Jo’burg. Trip starts with a hilariously long flight to Dubai. Seriously, you know you are in trouble when you fly from New York to Copenhagen, look up at the screen and realize you still have FIVE hours to go. Just painful. Service on Emirates was great and their video system made the flight go by as fast as possible, but, there’s just no fixing the pain you get on a 12 hour flight from in economy. There were a lot of Mexican fans on the flight, but USA fans did outnumber them about 2-1 (flight was from the US, fair enough). Transferring in Dubai was pretty decent, it is a very nice airport and the rentable shower option seems like a win that most large airport should have. Enjoyed the Dubai interplay of Muslim women in the burka passing by American tourists in t-shirts & shorts. Got just about no sleep on the flight to Dubai due to the aisle seat giving everyone on the plane a great chance to rub their ass on my left arm while walking to and from the bathroom. Un-amusing doesn’t quite cover it.
Flight to Jo’burg went well enough, as by then I’d been up for something like 19 hours off of 4 hours of sleep, and basically passed out. Just before getting off the plane we read the BBC news highlights, which included two foreign journalists getting mugged at gunpoint, not a good sign. Landing in the newly renovated O.R. Tambo in JNB was cool though, as the airport looked nice enough, they have paperless (read: we’re not exactly checking) immigration procedures, and were passing out free cans of Coke (World Cup Sponsor) to tourists entering the airport.
We landed on the afternoon of June 9th, which turned out to be South African Vuvuzela pride day, in which people were encouraged to blow long plastic horns until they passed out. Judging by the tinnitus, it was a great success, since the entire airport sounded like an air horn test facility. We were not in fact met by the airport car from out hotel (alert, there’s a theme here) as we were told we would be, and we spent the next hour in the airport renting a local cell phone, printing our World Cup tickets (amazing simple process, actually) and trying to find a cab that wouldn’t either charge us a fortune or drop us off in the middle of the set from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. We were able to find a Mercedes painted like the South African flag, which was pretty cool, except that while I was encouraged by the prospect that he ran on a meter, I was less encouraged when that meter turned out to around $ 550 Rand, somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 75 USD for a 45 minute cab ride (a nicer neighborhood than our hotel, but anyway). But, hey, we got a free stop at the police station to ask for directions, which made us feel momentarily less likely to get shot before getting to our hotel.
We then arrived at our house, the African Gray House, named after a parrot. It is in a neighborhood generally called Auckland Park, close to Melville and somewhat removed from downtown Jo’burg. We arrived to find a number of our friends already here, including Connor & Dave (collectively, Sparta Firm) along with Jim & Jim (Doctors Detroit). Our accommodations were Spartan but decent, 4 bunk beds to our particular room which were arranged on top of each other, in contrast to the Sparta & Detroit room where three beds were laid just about touching each other under a top bunk only bed; frankly, I thought their bedroom was awesome, but only because it looked like the rooms on a tanker ship on CNN where they keep the hostages. The hotel featured a main house with 2 bedrooms and a decent main sitting room where we could watch games, plus a kitchen where they cooked us free breakfast. It also had the Las Vegas bathroom, so named because the functioning shower and toilet with locking bathroom door struck us a opulent in contrast to the other bathrooms that had either doors or shower curtains, but not often both. Throughout the trip the charms of the 3rd world shower facilities and the comforts of the house (bath towels in South Africa are apparently = to hand towels in America) would provide constant surprise (3 bathrooms, no toilet paper?) and amusement.
The weather in Jo’burg is cool, but a tolerable mid-60s during most of the days and cool nights, sometimes in the low 40s. It seems to be coldest in the morning for some odd reason, though, this could just be a function of showering in a place with no heat in the rooms. Yeah, pretty bad ass.
Our first impressions of our neighborhood (and thusly of South Africa) were picked up on Thursday, our first full day, when we got to walk around Melville a bit and check out the area, followed by a trip to Sandton. They tell you that there are a lot of dangerous things to do in South Africa, like walking down the street, but our neighborhood seems pretty decent and we’ve had no problems (yet). About a mile from our hotel is a strip mall with some restaurants, a grocery store that has come in handy, and a sometimes open internet café.
On Thursday we decided to take a trip to Sandton, which is kind of the Bethesda of Jo’burg. This started with a walk to Melville to pick up a cab, which was our first great African adventure. We got into a street van (generally frowned upon, but, doable in large groups) and told the driver to take us to Nelson Mandela Square, which sounds like something important and historic, but is actually a giant shopping mall (they seemed to have picked up that idea from America, it’s in keeping with our President’s day Mattress sales (thanks for the sacrifices, George) and probably came from the same mind that put a McDonald’s next to the Pantheon in Rome). But, getting to Sandton proved to be a step too far for our cab driver, who first drove us through the exact same blocks of the Newtown area of Jo’Burg three- count ‘em, three- times before giving up and dropping us off at the Princess Hostel, where he told us to go inside and pay his boss, and that he’d then drive us to where we asked to go. We went inside to pay his boss, at which point we found out that he was a driver for the hostel, not a cab driver, and that they had ABSOLUTELY no idea what the hell we were talking about. The driver was either clueless and thought we were students trying to get to that hostel or was trying to pick up some cash on the side and just failed on the ‘running an illicit taxi service with someone else’s van’ gig, but we were able to get two cabs that drove us to Sandton. One of these cabs was great, new, perfectly comfortable. The other one was a 1987 Toyota Camry with zebra covered wool seats, and a current state of repair that told us Jo’burg apparently has no auto inspection requirements. The car shook violently over 35 miles an hour, and was falling apart before our eyes, almost literally. It stalled five times at one red light and had no functioning clutch, mere details to our cab driver who- upon learning we were Americans- regaled us with stories of how he used to drive for Bill Clinton’s charity back when his car was new. There’s a Paula Jones joke in here somewhere, but I’ll leave it out for now.
Nelson Mandela Square was in fact a pretty good mall, eerily similar to the ones you’d find in the US. We caught lunch at a restaurant whose menu included such highlights as Ostrich burgers and bubblegum milkshakes, the latter of which our friend Pinto was induced to order (got a thumbs up; we have since learned these are pretty common on South African food menus, still not sure why). As it was the night before the cup opened, South African fans were out in the square (under the ESPN headquarters studio) singing and dancing, getting ready for the party that was to come on Friday with the kickoff of the cup. The mall came in pretty handy as I was able to pick up some flip flops for showering (these are pretty necessary), a towel larger than legal sized paper for showering and some snacks for the house. We saw some pretty interesting items for sale (an 8 foot wooden African statue of a soccer player painted in multiple team colors among them, and we took pictures with the lion-type-thing that is the mascot of the games, apparently designed by a Japanese cartoon company. It is striking for both its uselessness (why does a soccer tournament need a cartoon animal to promote it, again?) and its inability to convey anything remotely African.
We took a slightly more direct set of cabs back to our place, and hung out for the rest of the night, welcoming more friends into our house as they arrived. All in all it was a good day, and our impressions of South Africa were set: nicer than we expected but still kinda sketchy, the locals pulling the tournament together but clearly struggling with the demands of the visitors.
Thursday night we hung out in our hotel and watched the ‘opening ceremonies’ of the World Cup, the kick-off Concert live from Orlando Pirates Stadium in Jo’burg. Man, if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to watch a 4 hour Super Bowl halftime show, I can tell you, and it isn’t good. Alicia Keys was okay and Shakira was pretty good, but the only 4 minutes of the thing anyone needed to watch was the performance by K-9, whose song has become the de facto anthem of the World Cup. Stung by the banality of it all, we hit the sack and went to sleep on what was really Soccer Christmas eve, eager to see what presents were in store for us on Friday. Of course, I stayed up until 4am and got up at 8, so, my Christmas felt more like a hangover than a holiday, but, such is life during the world cup.
Friday, June 11th
Friday was kick-off day, starting with host South Africa playing Mexico at 4pm from Johannesburg Soccer City Stadium (cap. 95,000), followed by France- Uruguay in the 8:30pm slot. Being troopers, were decided to hit Jo’burgs Fan Fest, a large outdoor free viewing spot to catch the game. The Fan Fests were HUGE hits in Germany in 2006, and the 2010 WC organizing committee actually helped put Fan Fest locations all around Africa so that fans without TVs could watch the games for free, a pretty awesome step, really, and something that was done to help all of Africa feel like this was their World Cup. We figured that the excitement and passion of 10,000 South Africans would better way better than hitting a local bar and snagging some beers; In this, we were not let down. We got some South African flags for 70 Rand (under 10 bucks, sticks included!) and set off to party with the locals.
The fan fest was in Newtown, just 2-3 miles from our hotel but in the downtown section of Jo’burg that most resembled Detriot on a bad day. The area was okay, but, not exactly as posh as Berlin’s Brandenburg gate location, to be sure. We shoved in with the rest of fans in somewhat disconcerting Who concert style around 2 hours before the match and scoped out a location way in the back, but with the screen easily viewable. We were just across from the giant Africa Museum, and also next to a one story recording studio whose arched, tiled and pretty dangerous looking roof hosted, albeit it temporarily, about 100 people trying to watch the game. This lasted only about 20 minutes until someone fell off of it, and it was ordered cleared. Ah, nothing like 10,000 drunk people to really kickoff a party.
As South Africa was playing, the atmosphere was pretty nuts. People were dancing and celebrating everywhere, the highlight of which was the guy on the 10 foot stilts with a world cup on his head dancing through the crowd. How he didn’t fall I don’t know, but I got some pretty good pictures of him which I’ll post eventually. The crowd went all sorts of nuts at kickoff a few times, but were generally subdued by a Mexican side that almost scored early and should have gotten more out of a game in which they dominated. South African striker Tshibalala (sp?) set the crowd into hysterics around the 50th minute with an amazing goal, which led to outright pandemonium. It wasn’t scary, but, it was 10,000 people all going apeshit, which is always pretty cool to see. It may not have been as well run as Germany’s fan fests – long lines for the beer were one thing, watch people go 3 at a time into port-a-potties was another (gross)- but it was the best non-game atmosphere I’d ever seen.
Sadly for the hosts, Mexican defender and US Soccer Villain Rafa Marquez scored late for Mexico to equalize at 1-1 and the game ended there, with a deflated but still upbeat crowd of South Africans partying into the night. Through a rambunctious crowd we headed (escaped?) back to our house for some Pizza, which we were able to get delivered by a company that delivered food for restaurants that didn’t deliver food. Interesting concept, but, whatever, their pizza-hut –esque pies were well received. We tucked in somewhat early (1am) for the big game day on Saturday, excited to have been a part of a great time at the fan fest, but also a bit nervous that now the spotlight belonged to us for our game against England.
Saturday, June 12
Biggest day of the first round for us, and a game that we’d been waiting for since December 4th, 2009, when we were drawn into group C with England (Slovenia & Algeria). The game was held in the country town of Rustenburg, later re-named Red Dusten Burg for the hilarious amounts of red clay we came home tracking in our shoes. It’s a town that basically exists to exploit the world’s largest Platinum mine on the Bafokeng reservation, and is sort of like hosting a World Cup game in Hershey, Pennsylvania. That R-burg was competing with bustling Jo’burg, beautiful Cape Town and beach-side Durban seemed comical to begin with, and was made all the more so on trip there.
Rishi, Irish Kevin & I got an early start picking up supplies for the tailgate, including $ 250 worth of groceries and 15 cases of beer (well, we were thirsty) for our thirty-plus person bus trip to the game. We loaded up the buses and began the drive to R-burg, which took us about two and a half hours. It was our first trip out of Jo’burg since we landed, and as we pushed out into the deep burbs we saw some really nice views. The smallish mountains and scenery started to turn really pretty as we got closer to Maliesburg (sp)?, and we passed one spot on the road to R-burg that looked like something out of Switzerland. To be sure, there is some great scenery here, and looking down some of the roads lead to places like Sun City, you could at times be forgiven for thinking you were along a golf course in Florida.
We stopped for a quick bathroom break in a local village crafts pit stop (good to see that the Southwest US isn’t the only place infested with native crafts highway stores). The highlight of this stop was Detroit Jim getting the guy dressed as a Zulu Warrior to yell “F- England” in exchange for some pocket change. Ah, nothing beats international diplomacy.
A further hour or so down the road and we were in Rustenburg, and there the chaos began. Part of our group got separated and drove to the parking spot, which caused our buses to get completely lost, sparking an hour and a half of total bus trip chaos that I will do posterity the favor of not describing (Phokeng East, hijo de puta). We eventually got to the lot and kicked off our tailgate, which was pretty great. Lots of beer, sausage and (eventually) grilled chicken was had, as we started getting our voices ready for the game by singing pro-US and anti-English songs. Considering their proclivity to belittle us, there are few things as fun (or as easy) as picking on the English, and when it comes to soccer while we don’t have their players or success, we do have an overwhelming advantage in material for busting of chops.
We spent time in the lot folding our large Baby Big Ass Flag (so named as being the smaller- at 30×20 of the two main US flags supporters carry to games, 60×40 being the other one), risking snakebites by hitting the bushes for nature breaks, and admiring the Sedona-esque red dust collecting on our shoes, clothing and food. I would say as a group we were nervous but optimistic heading into the game. With the talent England puts on the field, they have the ability to really take us apart- not to mention our defense still struggling back to full fitness. Wayne Rooney has been a monster all season, and it was certainly possible for him to run riot on us if we weren’t diligent about containing him. That said, we knew we had a clear advantage in goal- just how large we’d soon find out- and we certainly thought that on our day we could play with them if things went right.
Royal Bafokeng stadium had kind of a mini-Rose Bowl feel to it, pretty simple and functional stadium entrances outside and a two-layer bowl inside. We found a somewhat collection of US fans in section 210, though, there were a lot of English fans all spread across the stadium. You couldn’t help but see them before the game, but I was completely shocked by how quiet they were during the game. The only explanation was that these weren’t the REAL English fans and that they were largely just Anglophile locals and tourists, but, I didn’t hear one actual English song all game, from a crowd that usually has no trouble belting out songs when the time comes. Complete mystery to me, really. I wouldn’t say that the US Section was in dominant form either, those of us in the middle of the section did what we could to get songs going somewhat in vain, but we got a lot of simple U-S-A chants and the like going around, and I cannot figure out why England didn’t have more vocal support on hand. Lots of flags, but no singers for some odd reason.
I was able to get the flag into the game, and was heartened to hear later that it made it onto TV (thanks to NJ Brigade all around Hero Ed K. for hooking the South Africa crew up with it this WC). Really, of all of the things we can do, singing is part of it but showing that huge flag in the section is the best way our players can tell- in stadiums where they can’t always hear us- that we are there supporting them. It means so much to us to be able to show that support to our team, and a hell of a lot to see them appreciate it.
On the game, well, it was great to be there, but you can’t help feeling somewhat disappointed that the US missed an opportunity. Four minutes into the game, England went up 1-0 and you started to get the feeling that this could all go quickly south. But the US fought their way back and equalized on a ridiculous error by English goalie Robert Green. (We later that night chanted that (US Women’s National Team ‘keeper) Hope Solo could start for England, and I was only half-kidding singing it. Even a healthy Matt Reis would be a welcomed addition to their side.) Back to the game, the US kept pressing and had the better of the chances late as a slowed Jamie Carragher seemed to struggle at his work. The US did well to earn a tie, and we were all somewhat glad that we didn’t start off on a bad foot, but that game was clearly there for the taking. I remarked later that you have to wonder what Fabio Capello was really adding to the side that night. Injuries are part of the game, but that sub-par effort looked right out of the ‘Reasons we Fired Sven Goran Ericsson’ handbook.
We walked out of the game celebrating what we could, taking a point was still nothing to sneeze at, and a good time was had by all jumping up and down in the lots around the concourse to the chagrin of English fans walking out of the stadium with their tails between their legs. Ran into MLS Commish Don Garber on the way out, always fun. We had to wait about 45 minutes to get a bus back to our parking lot, 20 minutes of which was spent dressing down a drunken English fan who kept telling us that we were a shit team. A shit team that he tied, of course, but that point was lost on him. He eventually proved his mettle by getting into an argument with a 5’2” woman, and was left to ponder (after we thanked BP for making the Louisiana Coastline 92 octane) the wisdom of mocking George Bush when we agreed that he was clearly only half the man Margaret Thatcher was.
A stupidly long bus trip back to Jo’burg awaited us as our bus first caught a flat tire, then hit insane traffic. What should have been about two plus hours quickly became four, and rolled back to our hotel around 4:30am. Since the sun was coming up soon, four of us decided to welcome it by eating Spanish ham out by the fire while drinking and waiting for the sunrise. We eventually hit the sack around 7:45am, a mere 23 hours after waking up.
Hell of a day. Proud of the team, a bit disappointed by the result, but very glad we got to be there and sing for 90 minutes, raising the flag and carrying our support to our team, 7000 miles from home.
Next up, a 5 day break before the Slovenia game, and the quest to find some sort of wi-fi for our hotel so that we could all finally log into the internet and reconnect to the world. (honestly, it’s like living in 1989 over here).
June 13
Sunday was spent relaxing & recovering from Saturday. Many of the stores were closed, so we watched the US’ two other group stage opponents take on each other (Slovenia & Algeria) over t-bone steaks at Dros restaurant in Melville, and then headed home for a nap and some more games. The Slovenia game was somewhat tepid, 1-0 to the Europeans, but the highlight of the game was an Algerian fan climbing up the catwalk for the spot lights, and standing there, 100 feet off the top of the stadium, just chillin’. They showed him twice in about five minutes in the second half, but they didn’t show him after the Slovenians scored, so, hopefully he didn’t jump. Germany- Australia was the primetime game, and it didn’t disappoint, with Germany rolling 10 man Australia 4-0 after a Tim Cahill red card. Somewhat early to bed Sunday night and then off to Johannesburg’s soccer city for the afternoon affair of Netherlands vs. Denmark. We scored a parking pass from some press friends who were riding along, and we were able to just make kickoff after driving through some Atlanta-esque traffic getting to the stadium.
Johannesburg Soccer City is a very, very nice stadium, located in a dust field next to what looks like a landfill. But, seriously, the stadium itself was great and we moved from the upper deck seats of 517 down to (ahem) section 105 thanks to some lack seat checking at halftime. 😀 Netherlands caught an own goal by the Danes and then finished it off 2-0, a decent game but not sparkling. The cup so far has suffered for goals, and today’s efforts were no different. Japan got past Cameroon 1-0 and we’re here in Jo’burg waiting to catch tonight’s Italy game on TV. You don’t see the Azzurri giving up many goals, but, perhaps they can throw some up on the scoreboard.
Catch you guys in a few days, hopefully sooner.
NY 11 - The New York Home of US Support 
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